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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   34456 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 11, 2024

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"Stereotypes are bad" is a motte and bailey argument.

The motte goes something like this: "Individual differences are bigger than group differences. So, even though group differences exist, it's unfair to treat people differently based on {immutable characteristic}. Treat everyone equally when you first meet them."

The bailey is more like: "There are no important differences between groups. Any time you think you notice one, it's because of your own inherent racism, sexism, etc.."

We're mature enough here to realize just how wrong the bailey is. In fact, almost all stereotypes are true. But, even so, some stereotypes really are false. Usually this is because of sampling bias. The people you come cross in a group are not representative of the group as a whole.

Here's an example. In America, there is a stereotype that British people are intelligent. Now, obviously, not everyone holds this stereotype. If you are a resident of southern Spain or Croatia, you've probably come to the exact opposite conclusion as you're invaded by drunken louts every weekend. But here in America, we're rarely exposed to the British working class. The Brits who make it over here tend to be the Received Pronunciation types who probably are generally smarter or at least better educated than the average American. Thus, many Americans hold the incorrect stereotype that British people are smart.

What other stereotypes are false?

If I didn't recognize the username I would have reported this as bait from a troll trying to get people to do base and boring racism.

Though we also got death, taxes, and @2rafa correcting various Americans on the intricacies of the British class system.

In general a lot of these examples suffer from definitional problems. What makes a stereotype True? What makes one Useful? Is "height correlates with intelligence" a true stereotype if there is any correlation, or only if it's the best tool by which to judge? A significant part of the perceived motte and bailey is a struggle between "Judging people by X is better than random" and "Judging people by X is less useful than judging them by Y."

A great example right now is gender race and politics. A white man is 6/10 likely to vote for Trump. So white man = Trump Voter is more accurate than blind chance. But we all know white men who didn't, and we all know white men who from across a room you can say with 95% certainty based on appearance that they didn't. Should I continue to hold the former stereotype in my mind when the latter evidence points the other way.

That said I'll throw one out there: ethnic in group preference exists, and as much as I was raised to be told it was a harmful racist stereotype one ignores it at one's own peril.

That all people with geeky interests (video games, anime, D&D etc.) are unusually intelligent.

Nerds are intelligent, and a lot of nerds have geeky interests, but there are plenty of people with geeky interests who are utterly lacking in intelligence or even common sense.

That people who play sports, exercise a lot etc. are just "dumb muscle"

All things being equal, the guy going to the gym four times a week is probably smarter, more accomplished and more disciplined than the nerdy Reddit moderator who blows all his disposable income on Funko Pops.

That homeless/underclass are unlucky and just like anyone else.

False stereotype: beautiful people are dumb and evil, ugly people are smart and have hearts of gold.

The penguin was amazing show. Too long since we had a proper protagonist that was flat out irredeemable.

But here in America, we're rarely exposed to the British working class.

Out of curiosity, what did Harry Potter qualify as?

Harry Potter's adoptive parents are an overtly negative stereotype of the Tory-supporting upper middle class, as would have been understood when the series began in the 90s.

Dursleys are middle middle not upper middle, they live in a barratt box in a new development with a tiny lawn and a small conservatory - expensive in the green belt today but relatively much cheaper in the mid 90s. Dursleys are people who say “settee” and “pleased to meet you” and so on. They scrimped enough to send Dudley to a cheap local private day school, but he would have been nobody special there. Hermione’s background is upper-middle.

Vernon Dursley is the director of a mid-sized company. Second paragraph of the first book.

Mr. Dursley was the director of a firm called Grunnings, which made drills.

The books and films might have lowered his mannerisms below what you'd expect for such a position, but that's because it's meant to be a negative stereotype. And part of that negative stereotype is that he gets to be the director of a distinctly unfashionable business, rather than working in a high-paid but fashionable (for the 90s) profession.

Dursleys are people who say “settee” and “pleased to meet you” and so on.

Not English, what is the connotation here?

Hermione’s background is upper-middle.

I'm rusty on my HP lore, but where is this implied? I don't remember her family situation being discussed much in the books or shown in the film.

She’s the daughter of dentists and speaks in RP English, it would be the correct assumption.

There are certain word choices that differ between classes. Using the words “toilet” or “posh” is a very clear indicator that you aren’t upper or upper middle class.

Washing your hands before eating and being generally obsessive over hygiene standards is middle class, while the upper class generally prefer shabby chic and pick up half-finished meat bones with their hands.

Steretypically, the middle classes are afflicted with status anxiety, and therefore obsess over getting things right. Witness the Dursleys scripting out dinner etiquette before Mr. Dursley’s boss arrives for dinner. Whereas etiquette for the upper classes is just ‘whatever the upper classes do’ so they don’t fuss about it too much.

A classic example is the very PMC Nick Clegg and his wife going to dinner with the the Camerons (the Prime Minister and his wife, as upper class as they get) and being shocked when Mrs. Cameron used cheap mayonnaise from a bottle instead of using something fancy or making it herself. Not needing status symbols is the status symbol.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3706031/amp/SamCam-s-idea-cooking-jar-Hellmann-s-says-Miriam-Nick-Clegg-s-wife-exposes-food-habits-political-elite-new-autobiography.html

Her parents are dentists, that’s all I remember about them

Dursleys were middle class social climbers (the most universally despised class). weasels and malfoys were the two types of old money with no money (and fathers who had to stoop to taking govt sinecures as welfare, or in shady business with The Wrong Sort ("directly in business" being the most disreputable part of course)). Hermione was the acceptable kind of rising middle class (dentist, daughter in higher education, probably going into non-profit work). Harry was the ideal form of old money, with a good pedigree on the father's side, fresh blood of undeniable quality from the mother's side, and the money still there (and nobody asks where it came from because it obviously wasn't from anything as tasteless as working for it). Goblins were the international finance class obvs.

Harry is the classic storybook prince who grew up noble living in a pig pen and instantly takes to the ways of his people through pure blood memory.

I'm not sure we even saw anyone who was legitimately from the lower orders except a few parodies like hagrid and the house gnomes, maybe the bus driver? There was probably a scholarship boy hanging from a bannister by his underwear that nobody bothered to mention because it would be gauche to bring attention to it.

I love that Americans can look at the same scene through an entirely different colour spectrum, and all the flashing red bits just look gray to them.

anyone who was legitimately from the lower orders

The thief Mundungus Fletcher surely qualifies.

Guess I need to read the books again, because that name only sounds vaguely familiar. He was filching stuff from Sirius's house, right?

(Spoiler: he will not in fact read the books again)

That's right.

I love that Americans can look at the same scene through an entirely different colour spectrum, and all the flashing red bits just look gray to them.

The question is what value is encoded in the British lens and what Americans are missing by not seeing this worldview. Does it make Americans worse analysts when interacting with the Chinese etc or does it free them to do more, with less mental burdens or are they stupider because they're not constantly doing such social calculus etc etc Like preeminent American Timothy Dexter I'll put my punctuation at the end...,,,???????

If some reader misses something that the author intended and the expected audience understood, I would think less of that reader. Like if all I took away from Animal Farm was that it is a sad story about animals, you would be correct to look down on me.

Certainly I find that living in a foreign country is more relaxing in many ways because my social radar isn’t going off all the time.

Weasleys werent old money, even if we discount the weird Irish twins none of them speak in RP / upper class accents except for Ginny to some extent. If one had to place them in the British class system it would be as middle-middle rurals vaguely involved in county life but certainly not upper class. There’s no real evidence dad’s job is a sinecure and the ramshackle thing they live in is more quaint converted barn (or grain silo) than dilapidated dower house.

No, I agree with @SteveKirk here. The Weasleys have a noble background (they’re on the Black tapestry) and they’re well known as an old-established Pureblood family. Lucius Malfoy basically dislikes them for being traitors and letting the side down.

It’s noted several times that Mr. Weasley could have a lot more money and be a lot more influential if he were willing to toe the line. He has personal relationships with bigwigs and Department Heads like Bagman and Crouch.

Many of their children also get distinguished positions: Percy goes straight to the top of government and Bill has an important job in the biggest bank in Britain.

(I’m ignoring accents and going by the books, I never had much interest in the films).

Yeah, I only got dragged to the first film by gf fam, but at least in that one they... didn't seem to know what to make of some of the characters.

Every pure blood family is a well known family because the total number of wizards in Britain is in the thousands, almost certainly below 20,000 even with much longer lifespan than normal for humans. There are conceivably older wizards in their nineties or hundreds who know by name the vast majority of the wizard population in the country.

It’s also a largely post-scarcity society in which bad jobs are done by magic or slaves (eg. the dishes do themselves in the Weasley kitchen), so we imagine people working “service jobs” like shopkeepers or cooks do so primarily because they derive enjoyment from that customer interaction rather than because they need the money. There is financial inequality but it’s mostly abstract except when it comes to the purchase of some magical goods and services (like wands or brooms or magic candy) that cannot be conjured out of thin air and thus require the labor of actual other wizards. Textbooks and other things seem to have some semi-inviolable magic copyright attached.

Most people are essentially middle class, working in the few things not outsourced to magic (aforementioned artisanal magic crafts, the justice/courts system and government, some hospitality, and education). Many people appear to do just fine having little or no real employment, perhaps because wizards can conjure space, light, heat, food, warmth and can teleport. In this context, a job in “the civil service” ie Ministry of Magic isn’t the same as a sinecure in a muggle government. It’s likely the ministry creates a job for any wizard who wants one; the destitute are those wizards who choose to be.

Dursleys were middle class social climbers (the most universally despised class).

I always got the impression that JK was channeling Hyacinth Bucket when she wrote Petunia.

There was probably a scholarship boy hanging from a bannister by his underwear

Snape, I think. I can’t remember the flashback well but I think it’s implied that child!Snape comes from the bad end of town.

And the week after I compare Snape's parentage to race-mixing, the new series makes him a half-black formerly known as Prince. Absolutely perfect.

Oh, Snape's wifebeating dad definitely was. His mom married down and Paid The Toll in American racial terms.

Unless he got a very good match Snape's children would have fallen out entirely, which is one reason him being in love with Lily in spite of his class anxiety was so meaningful.

weasels and malfoys were the two types of old money with no money

Uh, since when did the Malfoys have no money? They were famously generationally wealthy, as evidenced by Lucius Malfoy purchasing a new Nimbus 2001 for each member of the Slytherin Quidditch team in Chamber of Secrets

I thought their house was described in that "not enough money to keep up the manor" state, and they were paying off servants or something. Maybe I was mixing that up with something else.

I don't think it's enough to say they were in economically dire straits, but in the Half-Blood Prince, Narcissa is portrayed trying to sell some trinkets.

I'd have liked an angle where the Malfoys turn to Voldemort out of economic desperation.

More like Voldy eating them out of house and home :P Like Elizabeth I who destroyed political enemies by turning up with her retinue for two months.

Yes, the Malfoys were evil aristos parleying old money and social status for influence.

Malfoy’s mates Crabbe and Goyle - lower class or lower middle class? Servants of House Malfoy? As an American, all I can tell is they’re somewhere between soccer hooligans and Alfred Pennyworth.

Probably a dodgy genealogy chart claiming they've been cracking heads for the malfoys since 1352, and a dubious claim on the family heraldry they put on everything. That sort.

The lowest of upper/upper middle class, from what I've gathered if I'm not mixing it up with fanon. The kind that have to brownnose people like Malfoys to stay at their level.

Senior Crabbe/Goyle are in the Death Eaters so they couldn't have been too lowborn.

Though it's strongly implied that both Crabbe and Goyle generations are almost too dimwitted to use magic.

DEs had a lot of people and AFAIR accepted anyone who was pureblood and was willing to worship the big V. I don't think it required any special position in the society, at least for mere membership - it seems to be modeled after the Nazi party, which explicitly welcomed low class people that felt the society has left them behind and wanted to do something about it, no matter who gets hurt. It seems the true numbers of DEs weren't even known as many who were eager to join when the things were going well for them, later claimed there weren't true DEs as they were imperiused or coerced (weird that they didn't have means to detect somebody had been imperiused, but let's not dwell of that, HPs magic system is so full of plot holes).

(weird that they didn't have means to detect somebody had been imperiused, but let's not dwell of that, HPs magic system is so full of plot holes).

They could always dose anyone they wanted to question with Veritaserum, the problem in HP society is that the Good Guys can't just impose such measures on the important people.

The text implied there was a ton of low-level DEs who escaped any punishment basically just by going "don't know anything, was imperiused, leave me alone" and ministry of magic doing nothing about it. If anything, the prominent DEs were the ones who got Azkaban or forced to recant and snitch in public on others, and low-level goons largely got away with it - to flock back to Voldie once he came back.

weird that they didn't have means to detect somebody had been imperiused, but let's not dwell of that, HPs magic system is so full of plot holes

Also, sometimes you just can’t do stuff. Modern fantasy is very influenced by sci-fi and D&D, and readers expects thing to be rule-based, comprehensible, and amenable to experimentation. See for example all the silliness about playing rules-lawyer with genies.

I don’t think the deep HP magic runs on such modernist lines. It’s more like art: there are principles and the basics are straightforward but the complex stuff just isn’t, and you have to go by feel.

But it's not even explained why you can't do it, not even addressed. There are a lot of limitations which are spelled out, even if inconsistently - like Avada Kedavra being unblockable (which turns out not to be exactly true but ok) or you can't use Imperius to reveal certain secrets, or other stuff you can't do. But this point is never addressed - given that there are ways to remove Imperius (e.g. Thief's Downfall) why everybody, e.g., entering Ministry of Magic is not automatically un-imperiused? Worst thing it does nothing. There's also finite incantatem, there are also veritaserum (ok this one may be too expensive to use on each suspect consistently), and if MoM can detect magic done by underage wizards, up to knowing which spell what used by whom, why can't it detect Imperius usage by others? It looks like tracing works on adult magic (if it is performed in the vicinity of underage, at least) so again, it's inconsistent.

given that there are ways to remove Imperius (e.g. Thief's Downfall) why everybody, e.g., entering Ministry of Magic is not automatically un-imperiused? Worst thing it does nothing.

True, I forgot this.

In general, I feel an urge to push back against the ‘rule-ification’ of fantasy. It’s become gospel that fantasy worlds should have systems with clear rules, and a certain amount of post-enlightenment tendency to assume that everything is explainable and amenable to engineering.

We can’t even engineer human social systems, or understand how brains work beyond very basic principles. Why would we be able to understand literal magic?

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He was left with quite an inheritance/trust fund at Gringotts.

My new head cannon is that Harry Potter's wealth comes from his parents both having taken level term life policies and used Voldemort to have a legitimate insurance claim. Voldemort spend the next 10 years trying to get his payout from Harry Potter. The unreleased book Harry Potter and the Insurance Claims Adjuster is about the lawsuit and encroaching poverty as Harry Potter is faced with ever increasing lawyers' fees.

Weirdly enough, in the parody series Barry Trotter (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Gerber_(parodist)), Barry and Ermine get married and have a son who's a Squib. Because their son has grown up around magical people, he experiences a "grass-is-greener" effect in which Muggle culture seems impossibly exciting and exotic to him. His childhood ambition is to become an actuary in an insurance firm.

Perhaps I'm not fully versed on the intricacies of the British class system, but it seems obviously middle class?

Obviously so, yes, but by posing a question anyways I was able to get some adults to nerd out about a children's book series. ;-)

I'm struggling with this one and it bothers me. Not quite a stereotype but at work most of the time people come off as smarter and more competent when I interact with them one on one, then through project managers. So if I'm screaming at an email chain that so and so is a fucking idiot I try to go talk to them in person and things end up better.

I asked google and got these fun responses from the AI:

Many stereotypes are not true, including stereotypes about intelligence, gender, and race:

Intelligence: The stereotype that Asian Americans are intelligent is not true.

Gender: The stereotype that women are not as competent as men is not true.

Race: The stereotype that African Americans are less educated is not true.

Race: The stereotype that African Americans are less educated is not true.

It bothers me that I have no problem imagining a woke person asserting that this stereotype is false, and then in the next breath asserting that lower rates of educational attainment among African-Americans is one of many metrics demonstrating the extent to which the US is still a systemically racist country. It should not be possible for a mentally sane person to simultaneously believe "owing to systemic racism, African-Americans have lower rates of educational attainment than white Americans" and "the notion that African-Americans are less educated than white Americans is a false and harmful stereotype".

Like, if you believe that African-Americans are less likely to get an education because of racist policies or teachers or how assessment procedures, that directly implies that African-Americans are less educated than white Americans! The latter "stereotype" cannot be false without completely invalidating the former assertion.

Related: https://jessesingal.substack.com/p/if-you-believe-in-structural-racism-16c

It should not be possible for a mentally sane person to simultaneously believe "owing to systemic racism, African-Americans have lower rates of educational attainment than white Americans" and "the notion that African-Americans are less educated than white Americans is a false and harmful stereotype".

Why not?

I'm reminded of a past therapist who thought it was unhealthy to care about whether your beliefs are consistent with reality, or with each other, and that "rationalists" are all mentally ill, because not only do most people believe things simply because their peer group believes them, this is how sane people are supposed to acquire all their beliefs. Don't think about it, just believe whatever's popular to believe because it's popular. As social animals, the most important thing in life is fitting in, and therefore one should choose one's beliefs entirely in line with that goal.

It's why she said I should stop being an atheist and start going to church — because atheism is "weird" and believing in God is more popular, therefore belief in God is automatically more sane.

Thus, in her view, if it's popular (and high status) to simultaneously believe "owing to systemic racism, African-Americans have lower rates of educational attainment than white Americans" and "the notion that African-Americans are less educated than white Americans is a false and harmful stereotype," then holding both beliefs is "mentally sane" despite their contradictory nature, and that even stopping to think about them enough to notice that they contradict each other is bad for your mental health, and should be avoided. "Sanity" is uncritically embracing vox populi, vox Dei.

I wonder what your therapist would have made of Nineteen Eighty-Four. Doublethink promotes wellness?

Psychiatry is all about normalcy. If the people saying that have power over you, it's an evidence that you are less sane than them.

Wait, what?

I asked Grok. It spit out lots of similar "false" stereotypes including this one:

Women are naturally better at nurturing and childcare: While some women might excel in these areas, many women do not feel an innate drive for motherhood or might not exhibit traditionally nurturing behaviors.

When I pushed back strongly, it did admit that women are, in fact, more nurturing then men but refused to do it in an unqualified way, always adding "it's important to remember" platitudes to the end.

So much for a based AI any time soon I guess.

Some days I wish people (or AIs) would actually think through their statements instead of just saying things that support their side on the topic of conversation.

African Americans aren't less educated? I guess it's mission accomplished for Affirmative Action, and all of the stats about race and educational attainment must be simply mistaken. Same with race/sex and medical treatment, as well as many other minor issues.

It's one of the things that really turned me off of social justice causes and their supporters.

Basically all the stereotypes about X or Y European culture being rude/unfriendly/etc. are false. They come from a combination of clueless tourists not realizing they're being rude first, or from Europeans playing up cultural mismatches/national rivalries. Even Parisians are no less friendly than the inhabitants of any comparable big city.

There are also a bunch of intra-African stereotypes Westerners would find very surprising to hear, but they tend to reflect reasonably accurately how Africans experience other cultures, so they're largely a result of different selection affects from intra-African migration relative to Africa-to-West migration. (This is talking about general stereotypes, of course, not those stemming from national or tribal beefs, which are just as ridiculous as the Dutch calling Germans bicycle thieves, but usually without the joking aspect).

Even Parisians are no less friendly than the inhabitants of any comparable big city.

This is totally wrong, have you seen how Parisians park? They literally ram the car in front and behind them with their bumpers to make room for parallel parking. Strangers will scratch up your bumper to make their parking easier and won't see anything wrong with it. This would be considered extremely rude in most other places.

Here's a video of Americans being shocked by Parisian parking: https://youtube.com/watch?v=n51OdFlOi1o

I would agree Parisians are crazy behind the wheel of a car, but I think that's orthogonal to friendliness.

Basically all the stereotypes about X or Y European culture being rude/unfriendly/etc. are false.

Interestingly enough, I have exactly the counter view of US culture, especially related to restaurant service. I find US waiters as rude. First they impose themselves upon me as if I care about their name or their stupid questions about where I am from or why am I in the US - as if I cannot tell that they don't give a shit. Then they constantly interrupt me and my friends with inane sales pitches - and if god forbid we go under some invisible sum of $spending per minute, then they actually slam the bill on the table and just kick me out as if I am some hobo. So much for friendliness. To me US waiters are bunch of fake stupid clowns putting on clownshow for US patrons, who for some reason like that shit.

Nevertheless despite this rant, I put up with it when I am overseas and act accordingly with fake smiles and everything - each country has its own thing and US people like their waiters to be clowns for some reason, it is what it is. I am not there to reeducate them about proper continental way of "invisible" manners of waiting staff. But it would be good to have some basic respect for other cultures as well and not take your own manners as the etalon everybody in the world should aspire to. For instance Japanese people are polite, they do not like to be touched and in general like their space. People in Brasil on the other hand love to touch each other, so if somebody comes to me and taps me on my back he means no disrespect or sexual assault or whatnot.

if god forbid we go under some invisible sum of $spending per minute, then they actually slam the bill on the table and just kick me out as if I am some hobo. So much for friendliness.

The hell? I have literally never had this happen in my entire life in the US. Either there's some other layer to why you're having that experience, or you are the unluckiest person to ever visit a restaurant here.

Maybe you reacted to dozens of "rude" cues of waiters who want to remove you from the table - after paying the tip of course - so they can sit down somebody else who will consume some more. If you ignore those hints, then the service can get really nasty. Try it sometimes.

Yes, U.S. waiters are awful.

"Hi, I'm Stacy, and I'm going to be taking care of you today".

10 minutes after your food arrives: "You still working on that?"

French service is much better, generally.

There are also a bunch of intra-African stereotypes Westerners would find very surprising to hear, but they tend to reflect reasonably accurately how Africans experience other cultures

Well, please go on, I want to be surprised.

There is a sentiment I’ve heard many times from Americans abroad which boils down to, “don’t worry, I’m American, it’s fine to be informal”.

It’s well-meant but often comes off as demanding unearned intimacy, or worse as, “I’m not interested in playing your silly provincial status games”.

or worse as, “I’m not interested in playing your silly provincial status games”

That's one of the only privileges you have as a foreign worker if assimilation is not your goal. Just smile and trample every boundary.

There’s a difference between trying and getting it wrong, versus thinking you’re doing everyone a favour by failing to respect how people are supposed to behave. Trampling people’s boundaries is deeply disrespectful to them and shows poor character IMO.

I remember a tourist I met once at a Meetup; she immediately gave me a rather demeaning nickname, clearly intending it as a playful icebreaker. Frankly I was appalled. I tried to be nice and not hold it against her but I still remember it as a quintessential example of someone trying to leapfrog social customs and botching it.

Hmm, but then why do I hear stereotypes about various central American or SE Asian countries being very friendly? I'm sure there are many rude tourists there, but somehow they come away thinking everyone is nice.

The cultures are in some ways more compatible with the US, but there's also an element of those countries being poor and needing tourist $$$ more, so their tourist-facing norms ended up being shaped differently.

It probably has to do with money.

In poor countries, people will dance for you. In rich countries, they won't. I actually much prefer the detachment of the French waiter who is too good for my filthy American dollars.

In the Third World, I always feel like a leaky sack of money more than a human.

Edit: Thinking about this some more, Latin Americans really do seem to have a friendly and positive attitude.

Also hilarious when people assume that Southeast Asians are more progressive than Westerners based on essentially 'The resort staff in a very narrow slice of Bali didn't say anything negative about my gay relationship, therefore progressive country'

People from big countries and open spaces seem to be more open and positive than people in more cramped conditions.

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New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


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